A
poll conducted late last year
by Gallup found that only 21 percent of the respondents
ranked newspaper reporters with either high or very high
standards for ethics and honesty Ė just above attorneys!
Television reporters scored even lower at 20 percent,
and advertisers held a low rating of only 14 percent.
Lobbyists held the dubious honor of being at the bottom
of the list with only six percent. What does this mean
for marketers and PR pros?

As a recent
blog post by Poynter points out, journalists have not held a very
high ranking since the poll was first conducted in 1976.
At that time, all journalists were grouped together and
had attained a 33 percent ranking. While vacillating
over time, that first poll was the high point. This
means that, while people read their newspapers and watch
TV news reports, there is a degree of skepticism to
overcome.

Unfortunately, media is driven by negative
reporting for the most part. An uplifting and positive
story will usually get less attention than a crisis or
negative event. The same is true for coverage of the
media. We usually donít hear about the great news
coverage provided by journalists, but we almost always
hear about the mistakes made in a news report.

Companies
looking to gain positive exposure to the press would be
well advised to build their list of media contacts
taking into account both the areas each journalist
covers, and also their reputation in the community.